Friday, September 12, 2008

From andDesign online magazine, for people interested in Design Education in K-12 schools,

"Non-designers often think that design consists mainly of decorating something - adding color and flourishes to make it "pretty". Designers make a big distinction between decoration and design. Whether it be in graphic design, product design, or environment design would-be "designers" have to get past the early "decorating" tendency. The need to first create the underlying structure is why many architectural models are done in plain white. In architecture, interior design, product design and, or for that matter, graphic design, structure is key."

Earlier, I would have read this statement and then, forgotten about it. Design was not my forte, and it is unlikely that I would have stopped here, at this e-magazine. Since I became a parent, however, I have been very gradually getting aware of how all children's books, not to mention toys and toy boxes and other paraphernalia are designed. Not just the designer clothes one associated the word design with earlier, but also the layout of a book, the colour co-ordination on a box, the ease of use of a website, the comforting feel of a toy - all the myriad components that make a product attractive in one way or the other. There is a kind of beauty in suddenly finding a world to discover at this age, at learning to piece together the various elements of design that make me like this or that, much like my child is doing with the rest of the world. It is fun! Take a look at all the sites I have reviewed so far. Bold bright colours, simple lines, non fussy layout - one look at the site's screenshot gives you an idea of how much you or your kid will like it.

Check out how true it is in today's featured site - Caillou's. This is another of the English/French sites with beautiful visuals.

When you click the play with Caillou button, an animation starts which leads you to Caillou's house, and there you meet up with him to play on games in his room, or the kitchen, the garden, the playground, or the school. Each scene is beautifully detailed and mouse movement leads to attractive changes. This scene is the playground, where you have two games highlighted -

In the beginning the child is asked whether he/she is playing alone or with a grown up - the games are then presented to involve the grown up as well. Each game has three levels of difficulty, but there is no choice about which level. You invariably start with the lowest unless you have been to the site recently, in which case it will start at the last level, and you can't change it. (But perhaps if the child is playing alone - something not very common with us - you do start at the lower levels repeatedly. Just a thought.)

The games are well designed, and hold interest for a long time. The train conductor game (from the playroom) and the dinosaur game (from the garden) are special favourites, but that changes with time, and varies from child to child. There is an element of learning associated with all games, even though they may not be designed to be as educational as say, BBC, or Uptoten, or Poisson Rouge. I particularly liked the dinosaur game for the way it introduced the concept of fossils. Followed by the Dr. Seuss publication, "Oh say, can you say?" (Cat in the hat learning library), this made an abstract concept very simple to visualize.

The downside for Caillou of course is the time it takes to load up, and if it ever gets stuck in the middle, you have to restart from the beginning, i.e. from the main page. That is the price you pay for the whole experience being in Flash. (Or whatever it is!)

P.S. Also, while talking of design in books, I have been fascinated by the Art in them. Many a times my decision to buy a book when just glancing at it has been influenced by the quality of the illustrations. Some of the books I have are so detailed as to be too confusing for a young child, but I keep them in the hope that with time its intricate lines will become easy and the beauty of the whole more apparent. I have bought books simply because we didn't have any in the patchwork style or collage like illustrations, or the art resembled tribal designs, or African, or traditional Indian - and I am always looking! So, when I discovered a pictorial blog by Priya Kuriyan, who has designed for Scholastic books, I was thrilled to find, as a bonus, three very short but very cute films about animals meant for preschoolers. Check the June entry.

2 comments:

Hi Swati thanks for looking at my work so keenly! By now you must have realised though what an irregular blogger I am :) . Was happy to find its not the case with you though . Have a little niece myself and I think I will definitely share these links on your blog with her . shes sure to be hooked.was also wondering if you ve seen books by pubishers like Tulika and Tara ..they are trying to do some interesting things with their childrens books by ensuring there is an Indian identity in them.thanks again!

Thank you for the lovely illustrations. I am looking forward to the day when I will pick up a Scholastic book and with a frisson, realize that it is illustrated by you.

I am glad that your niece will find these useful.

Yes, I am familiar with Tulika books, but at the last book fair they didn't have a large collection. I am checking up Tara books now. There are others as well - so I think you have given me an idea for another post!

Who am I?

What is this about?

Hello, new age internet baby! As times change, so do modes of instruction and entertainment, and the contents therein. Technology brings its own set of skills to master, even if minor ones. 'Hello, net baby' is a blog to showcase my collection of websites for young children. The title of each post will indicate how good I think the site is, on a scale of 1 to 5; the post itself is in two parts - some general chatter, in black, and the 'baby' part, in blue. A postscript section will always follow with strings of thought which are best handled separate from the main post. In some cases, it may even hold the main idea!

Feel free to disregard the extra chit chat and go straight to the section on websites. Your questions, suggestions and comments are welcome.